[ 2016-09-30 ]

EC accepts PPP’s filing fee, refuses to return it
The final day for submission of nomination forms
at the Electoral Commission (EC) headquarters
has seen a rather bizarre twist with the
Commission accepting the filing fee of the
Progressive People’s Party’s (PPP) Flagbearer
despite an interlocutory injunction placed on the
process by the PPP itself.


The PPP filed a suit at the High Court in on
September 19 seeking an interlocutory injunction
to prevent the Commission from receiving the
nominations in protest of the EC’s much
criticised increase in the filing fees for
presidential and parliamentary aspirants.


Yesterday [Thursday] the EC said it would not be
accepting filing fees from the presidential and
parliamentary aspirants because of the
injunction.


But the EC however accepted the filing fee of the
PPP flagberer, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, who was
represented by the party’s Chairman, Nii Allotey
Brew Hammond.


Mr. Hammond subsequently requested that the filing
fee be returned but the EC Chair, Charlotte Osei,
said it was too late to return the fee as the PPP
was aware of the legal implications yet still
presented the fee in bank draft form, according to
Citi FM’s Godwin Allotey.

The PPP Chairman explained that his party
presented the forms, the suit notwithstanding,
because regulations “indicated that all of the
submission of nominations should be accompanied
with the filing fee so we were complying with
that.”


Godwin Allotey also reported that moments later,
the Flagbearer of the Unity Development System
Party (UDSP), Richard Nixon Tetteh, also
submitted nomination forms but the EC did not
accept its filing fee.

The EC opened nominations earlier
in September and pegged the filing fees for
presidential hopefuls at GHc 50,000 and that of
parliamentary nominees at GHc 10,000.

Some aggrieved parties subsequently asked the EC
to review the amount describing it as
“exorbitant.”

The Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom-led PPP followed its
concerns with the suit seeking the injunction to
prevent the EC from receiving the nominations.

Source - citifmonline.com

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